Chapter 17

Arriving in Joe’s shop, Lucas saw Joe cleaning the shop through the front window.

“Hey Joe,” said Lucas as he walked through the door. “I see I don't have a wagon or slaves here or anything, so I take it I need to pick them up somewhere else.

Joe replied, “You are still just a wee bit early. Your delivery will come through the gate in around 15 minutes. We can head over now together, and we will be only a little early to pick it up.”

“Works for me, Joe,” said Lucas. “By the way, I am getting a little tired of calling you Trader Joe in my head. Do you have a last name I can use instead of a profession?”

“Sure do. Name’s Joe Albrecht.”

“Thanks, if you are ready, I’m ready to head over,” said Lucas.

“Let me lock up, and we can head over.” As Joe closed up the shop, he continued talking to Lucas.

“For delivery’s the size of yours we need to go to the back of the Gate Guild. They have a large garage door on the back of the building that they will roll up and send your order out. You are delivery number 17 this morning, and they started just a little while ago, so as I said, yours should come through soon.

“Ultimately your order includes the 12 slaves you requested as well as a significant amount of metal. You are getting around 800 pounds of iron and 50 pounds of copper. The 50 pounds of copper ended up costing you roughly 100 gold, the Iron cost about 175 gold. I got you a few pounds of nickel, cobalt, and aluminum in case you intended to make some steel for an Anvil. If you need a harder anvil, I’ve got some chromium I can sell you, so I didn’t order you any. That cost about 25 gold. The rest of the gold was taken up by the wagon, the slaves, and the transport fees.

I went ahead and split it 50% male and 50% female with a wide variety of ages and skills. I specifically requested a few skills based on the assumption you are building something out in the wilderness and would need some help with that. I asked for two slaves who had been trained as guards, a cook, a carpenter, a farmer, and then just an assortment of whatever they had that wasn’t too expensive. You’re not likely gonna get any beauty queens, but I can request one in the future if I need to.”

“There is no need to request a beauty queen for me. Thank you for putting in the request for those skills. My partner was just asking me last night if we would have a carpenter in the group of slaves,” said Lucas.

“Your partner in town somewhere? He could have stayed at the Inn too.”

“Ah. My partner is a woman, and I talked to her after I talked to you, but before I headed to the inn to go to bed. She’s not fond of people. She decided to stay where we were staying previously.”

“I can respect that. Well if she ever decides to come into the village….,” said Joe.

“I know, I know, I will send her to you in the Traders’ Hall if she needs anything,” replied Lucas.

“You got it! Alrighty. I’m ready to head over,” said Joe.

Turning, the two walked as a pair to the main street. They turned left out the front door and then went down an alleyway between the guild and the Church.

“You’re gonna want to take the wagon out behind the church and the town hall.” Lucas nodded as Joe confirmed his suspicion that the big building near the Inn was the town hall. “There are some folks in the ‘fancy’ homes that aren’t fond of slaves, and they will throw stuff at ‘em if they see them walking by.”

“And the city lets this happen?” asked Lucas.

“Well, one of them is the Mayor’s wife, so yes.”

As they finished the conversation, they arrived at the back of the Gate Guild. The arrived just in time to hear. “Now arriving from the Capital. Order 17.”

As Lucas watched as the circular gate, the scene that was in the center blinked out. Then with a “WOOSH,” a new connection was made. The surface of the Gate looked much like a puddle. As the ripples from the connection slowly broke like waves upon the shore that was the circular frame, Lucas was able to see what was taking place on the far side the gate connected from. Lucas could see the wagon getting ready to move, and the slaves who had been assigned to pull it through the portal. The rest of the slaves walked beside the wagon.

As the slaves pulled the wagon through the gate, the gate seemed to turn into a tunnel. Once the Wagon was entirely inside the portal, then the wagon began to exit onto the Esfield side. Turning as if to question Joe, Joe answers his question before he can ask it.

“The scriptures from Theta-Sigma say that the gate tunneling like that is related to something called a wormhole. Nothing can exit a wormhole before it is fully within a wormhole, so he has built his Gate Network to take advantage of this function.”

Lucas looked surprised for a moment, and then remembering his Physics classes from High school, said, “Yeah, that basically makes sense. I was surprised I could even see the other side. I figured that the casualty theorem would prevent that to prevent light from looping within the wormholes due to proximity.”

“I don’t understand what you said, but Theta Sigma did prescribe a 2-kilometer radius between any two gates,” said Joe. “Are you a priest of Theta-Sigma to have such Knowledge?”

Caught with his foot in his mouth, Lucas wasn’t sure what to say, so he said nothing and decided to welcome the slaves instead.

“Welcome to Esfield. I am Lucas Eckles. Thank you for joining me. Is there one of you who has been placed in charge of the slaves until delivery?”

“Lucas, you have to wait until they check in with the Gate Guild before you can claim your order,” whispers Joe. “Give them a moment, and they will call you over. How you do not know this as a priest of Theta-Sigma I do not know.”

“I am not a priest of Theta-Sigma, I have just read some very old books,” replied Lucas while he waited impatiently for the gate attendant to check in the order. As soon as the gate attendant was done, he beckoned Lucas over to him.

“I know you have already spoken up and said you are Lucas, but I need your claim ticket,” requested the gate attendant.

Lucas turned to Joe and said, “Joe, could you please turn in my claim ticket?”

Laughing, Joe said, “Sure thing, Lucas.”

The attendant inspected the claim ticket, cast a spell on it to verify its authenticity and then turned to Lucas. “You do appear to be the owner of this Cargo. The slave named Dan’el has been placed in charge as the foreman of this group of slaves. Finley and Kalliope are the two slaves that are trained as guards. Mason is the trained carpenter and Edith the trained Cook. The slaves are of a variety of races including Elf, Dwarf, Advanced Human, Classic Human, and unfortunately for you, one gnome. As they are slaves, they have forfeited their last names until you decide to give them one. I will let the rest of the slaves introduce themselves when you get to wherever you are going with this metal. You have 5 minutes to vacate this location.”

“You good Lucas?” asked Joe.

“Yup. Thanks for your help. I’ll be back in town in a couple days, and we can figure out where we are going to go from there.” Turning to Dan’el, Lucas said “Dan’el, I know there is plenty of space in that wagon. How much more can we load it up before we get difficult to pull.”

“Master, we can pull the wagon at its current weight of 2000 pounds with 5 of the slaves. We need to be able to rotate the slaves in and out to be able to keep the wagon moving for the entire day. I would say we can add no more than 500 pounds before it becomes too heavy to pull along a trail.”

“Great. Can I delegate to you the negotiation of 400 pounds of foodstuffs to add to the cart from the market?” requested Lucas. “We have plenty of meat for a little while, but I don’t have much else.”

“Based on prices in the capital, that would run you 6 gold,” said Dan’el.

As Joe hadn’t walked away yet, Joe jumped in, “Just come over to my store, I can do better than 6 gold for 400 pounds of veggies and fruits.”

Lucas turned to Joe, “I understand you probably could, but I need to spread my business around some. I can’t just get everything from you, other folks would eventually get resentful.”

“Well if you aren’t buying from me, just buy it straight from the market area. You won’t find any person who has that much food on their cart. But Susan can probably get that much delivered to the Tavern stables in an hour.”

“Dan’el, Go with Joe and talk to this Susan. Have her bring 350 pounds of foodstuffs and cooking equipment to the tavern stables. I will give you the money to pay her when she gets there. Tell her Joe can vouch for the fact that she will be paid. Bring Edith with you and let her tell you what she needs since she is going to be the cook.”

“Aye, and Susan will probably have to buy the food from me too,” laughed Joe.

Sighing at Joe’s antics, Lucas continued, “I’m not from around here, so I do not know what type of enforcement of your slavery they use in this Kingdom, just know, if you come with me, I will never willingly let you be hungry again.”

“I would not run away anyway, Master Lucas. Kalliope is my wife. I will see you at the tavern shortly,”

As Joe, Edith, and Dan’el walked away, Lucas turned to the rest and said, “Come on you lot. Let's get this dropped off at the stables and then get you fed. Kalliope, Finley, you will have to take turns guarding the wagon.”

As they headed out, Lucas took a discrete scan of the gate and of the wagon. Thankfully nobody noticed. As Lucas tucked the scanner back into his bag, he asked Rose quietly, “Is that wagon going to fit down the path you built. It’s not much wider than a person. Even if it is a decent length.”

I’m going to have to widen a few areas. I’m probably going to do that by filling in some dirt into the river area versus digging out more, it will be faster, but it will be temporary. Eventually, the water will wear it down again. Once everyone is inside, I will fix the entrance. There is a new door closer to where the water flows into the cave, I set the password to 98765 for now. We can change it later. You can also call me and ask me to open it if you want to make a scene. But I guess I should be honest; the password panel just calls for me no matter what button you push. I can then see you and decide if I am going to let you in.

“That sounds like something you would do. If you are offline and I put in the code, will the door open?”

Nope, Rose said with a giggle.

“So, you could have just put in a big red button that said ‘Call, Rose.”

Nope, Not as fun.

“Fine,” replied Lucas to Rose. “Alright everybody,” said Lucas as he turned to face everyone else since they had almost arrived at the stables. “When we get to the stables, I am going to ask Finley to guard the wagon for now. After Kalliope eats, I will send her out to switch with him. We are going to be eating in the Tavern. In the back room. I’m going to ask you not to ask too many questions until we leave town. We won’t be going anywhere that is too unsafe, and I am registered as a Hero, so I should be able to protect you from whatever we might face in this area.”

As the group walked into the tavern, Sarah intercepted Lucas at the door.

“Lucas, you are early. The back room is all set up for you and your friends. Jerry was glad to have the business during the slow period. You are going to owe him four silver for the room rental and the food,” said Sarah.

Quickly transferring Sarah ten gold. “Please take care of that and any other small expenses until that runs out. Let me know when you are down to three gold. Oh, can you write?”

“Yes, I can write. Thank you for your trust, Lucas,” said Sarah. “I will take care of this.”

Still not paying attention to any of the individual slaves, “Before you go. Everybody, this is Sarah, Sarah, this is everybody. She will be getting a detailed report from each of you on what you like to do, and what you can do and what bonuses or penalties your race has. We will use that to figure out how we can get everybody started when we get to where we are going. If you have any questions, get with her, and if she can’t answer it, she will get with me. Enjoy your food. If you don’t have adequate clothing, let Sarah know, and she will get you some before we leave. Any questions?” Not waiting for anyone to respond, Lucas continues “No? Good.”

Lucas sits down at one of the seats around the table as everyone else shuffles in. After everyone found a chair, Sarah brought in plates of food for each of the individuals. A short and surprisingly pretty slave, considering Joe’s earlier remarks tried to sit next to Lucas, but he rebuffed her saying the seats were saved for Dan’el and Sarah. After 5 minutes or so, Edith and Dan’el walk in. Dan’el sits in the open chair next to Lucas. Sarah gets up from her seat on the other side and runs to get Dan’el and Edith their food. Once Sarah is back, Dan’el begins filling Lucas in as everyone eats.

“Lucas, we have secured the foodstuff. Edith requested several spices that raised the price above the original 6 gold. But she said it would increase the variety of meals she could make. Since you did not specify and since Joe seemed to indicate it would be fine, I went ahead and placed the order with Susan. The total cost is 7 gold 2 silver, and it will be delivered to the stables by the time the Clock tower rings Noon. The cooking equipment ran another 5 silver.” reported Dan’el.

Thinking for a moment, Lucas opened a trade window and then said, “Dan’el, here is the coin you need to pay Susan. After you eat, please go wait for her in the stables. Your wife has the second guard shift, so you can wait with her out there. Please don’t take too long to eat, Finley needs to eat too.”

“Thank you, Master,” replied Dan’el before he got up and went to sit with his wife.

After Dan’el walked away, Sarah turned to Lucas, “Are you really not going to tell us where we are going until we’ve left the village?”

“That’s right. I don’t want my destination getting out before I am ready for it. That being said, I have a question for you, I’m not really sure what the different races that the Gate attendant stated we had really meant.”

“Honestly,” said Sarah, “it means almost nothing as far as appearance goes. It changes your allowed Professions; both the count and the type. It changes your physical stats. It changes the growth rate of your skills through multipliers. The second most important thing it does is to provide bonuses to certain areas. The most important thing it does is provide bonuses to certain areas increasing their effectiveness, with a corresponding area taking a similar penalty to effectiveness. For example, you remember Jerry yelling about Gnome’s? They get a big bonus to stealth and a penalty to magic. Elves get a boost to Magic but a penalty to physical attacks. Classic Humans have no boosts, but no penalties either. Advancers have tiny boosts to everything, something like plus 5%. There are a lot of other races, and there are few that are listed as a possibility but require special things to unlock. There is even one that is listed as ?????? at the bottom of the selection screen. “

“Can you give me an example of an unlockable race?” asked Lucas.

“Sure. The Hero Race is an excellent example since you just signed up for the Hero’s Guild. Basically, you have to do something notable in a battle to be allowed to take this race. It has substantial boosts to all actions taken while in combat. Most Hero’s take this race. There are boosts to pretty much all stats, except Charisma which has a penalty. There is also a selectable multiplier for skill growth. You can choose to be either a Magic Hero or a Physical Hero. You take a penalty to magic if you wish to be a physical hero and vise-versa.

“But again, nothing much physically changes if you take the Hero race. You get a little taller, you get a few more muscles, and that’s really it. Dwarfs get a bit wider and get a desire to drink a lot of booze. Gnomes get a bit shorter, but nothing outside the realm of normal for a Human. The ears on elves become a bit pointy. But that’s really the extent of the physical changes.”

“Thank you for that information,” replied Lucas. “I appreciate everything you've done so far.”

“You’re welcome my Lord,” said Sarah, as Lucas sighed.

“Not this again,” said Lucas, as Sarah laughed lightly at him. Lucas heard a noise and noticed that Finley was sitting down at the table. That means that Dan’el and Kalliope were getting the food loaded and guarding the wagon. “OK everybody, as soon as Finley is done eating we are moving out."